If you want to get strong and fit, you need to combine a specific training routine with a diet to gain mass.
If you’re looking to gain lean muscle mass, you should know that it’s not enough to go hard in the gym. You can train several hours a day and still not see the results you expect. And this happens because to gain mass and increase muscles, you need to maintain a physical exercise routine combined with a balanced diet. And then comes the diet to gain mass.
The diet to gain mass has a basic principle that you need to consume more calories than you burn. But that doesn’t mean eating just anything, quite the opposite. In fact, to gain mass you need to increase the amount of protein you consume during the day, as well as the amount of good fats.
This is done through a diet to gain mass, which includes certain foods and excludes others, such as processed products, foods rich in fat and sugar, alcoholic beverages, among others. These are the villains of a healthy diet, as they increase the production of fat in the body.
Therefore, today we will learn some tips on how to do this and what the diet is like to gain mass.
Tips for gaining muscle mass
Obviously it’s not possible to gain muscle mass without exercising, but that alone doesn’t work either. Firstly, if the intention is to become muscular or muscular, you need specific training for hypertrophy.
Thus, a training routine that works all muscle groups in an integrated way, along with load, repetitions and intervals. This combined with a diet to gain mass, this is the only way to obtain the desired results.
To help you with this task, let’s learn some important tips for those who want to gain muscle mass.
Consume more calories than you burn
This is the first step to gaining muscle mass. It is essential to consume more calories than you burn. This is because all the excess calories, along with training, contributed to the gradual increase in muscles, faster than exercise alone.
Don’t skip meals
Since the aim is to consume more calories than you burn, the ideal is to avoid skipping meals to get all the calories you need. Furthermore, going for long periods without eating can result in mass loss, which is definitely not the intention here. Therefore, the ideal is to eat 5 to 6 meals a day, preferably every three hours, focusing on breakfast and pre- and post-workout.
Consume a lot of protein
For those who want to increase muscle mass, it is necessary to increase protein consumption, in a balanced way throughout the day, and not just at lunch or dinner. Therefore, foods rich in protein are those of animal origin, such as meat, fish, chicken, cheese, eggs and derivatives. But in addition to these, foods such as beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, chickpeas, among others, also have a good amount of protein.
Consume good fats
This tip seems a little inconsistent with the objective, but it isn’t. Contrary to what many people think, consuming good fats helps reduce the accumulation of body fat, while also making it easier to increase calories in your diet to gain muscle mass. This type of good fat is found in foods such as avocado, olive oil, olives, flax seeds, chestnuts, fish and others. Therefore, the ideal is to add these foods to snacks during the day, as well as crepioca recipes, vitamins, etc.
Drink a lot of water
This tip is important for everyone, regardless of whether they want to gain mass or not. But in this case, drinking lots of water helps stimulate hypertrophy, responsible for increasing muscles. As muscle cells increase in size, they need more water to fill their larger space. When there is not enough water intake, mass gain becomes slower and more difficult.
Eat fruits daily
The ideal diet to gain mass is to consume at least two fruits daily. This is because fruits offer vitamins and minerals that help muscles recover after training. In this way, it contributes to a faster and more hypertrophied recovery of muscle mass. Not to mention that fruits are important for muscle contraction, reducing the feeling of fatigue during exercise.
Avoid consuming processed foods
Excessive processed foods, alcoholic beverages and foods rich in sugar do not help you gain muscle mass. On the contrary, in addition to increasing body fat, these foods delay muscle development. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid these foods, especially since the diet to gain muscle mass already has a lot of calories.
Therefore, foods such as sweets, cookies, cakes, sausage, bacon, ham, fast food and anything processed must be removed from the diet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ever eat these things again. The strategy is to eat in moderation and replace these foods with whole-grain bread, cakes and biscuits, eggs, meat and fish.
Don’t skip rest to gain muscle mass
When it comes to training, the ideal is to have discipline and dedicate yourself, but that doesn’t mean skipping rest. It’s common for people to think that they have to train for several hours and not take a day off, but this is a mistake that compromises the entire process of gaining muscle mass.
Rest days are essential for this, because it is during these times that the body rebuilds muscle fibers and synthesizes vitamins and other essential nutrients. So, when training overload occurs, the body has no way to do this. Therefore, the ideal is to have at least two days of rest per week.
Diet to gain muscle mass: menu
Now talking about the diet to gain muscle mass, the main tip is a balanced diet, made up of all the macro and micronutrients acquired through a variety of foods. But to define a diet menu to gain mass you need to take into account some factors, such as age, gender and training intensity.
So, the ideal is to look for a professional nutritionist to get personalized guidance. But in any case, below is an example of a menu aimed at gaining mass that contains approximately 2 thousand calories.
Breakfast
- 2 slices of wholemeal bread
- 2 slices of fresh Minas cheese
- 1 glass of 300 ml of skimmed milk with coffee
- 2 slices of papaya + 1 spoon of oat bran
Morning snack
- 1 spade
- 10 chestnuts or peanuts
- 1 glass of natural yogurt + 1 spoon of granola
Lunch
- 4 spoons of brown rice
- 3 spoons of beans
- 150 grams of grilled chicken
- Raw cabbage, carrot and pepper salad
Afternoon snack
- 2 slices of wholemeal bread
- 2 spoons of cottage cheese
- 3 slices of pineapple
- 1 cup of unsweetened coffee
To have lunch
- 3-egg omelet with white cheese
- 2 spoons of vegetables of your choice (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, zucchini, etc.).
- 3 spoons of cooked quinoa
Supper
- 1 glass of 300 ml skimmed milk with cocoa
- 1 banana
Anyway, what did you think of this article? In fact, take the opportunity to also check out Paleo diet – How it works, pros and cons, restrictions and menu.
Sources: Your Health My Life I Care
Images: The Boa Forma Women’s Magazine Vix
